Heika: NHL's Sunbelt teams on thin ice; Stars may be model for survival

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Each season, Stars fans can look forward to the smiles and skating of the Dallas Stars Ice Girls. Here's a look at the spirit and support group over its many years existence, and the women of winter who have cheered the proud NHL franchise.

The league pulled out of Atlanta last season and might have to do the same with Phoenix in the near future. Crowds in Dallas have slipped to embarrassingly low levels, and both franchise values and payrolls seem to be trending downward for the majority of “non-traditional” hockey markets.

Most Sunbelt teams rank in the bottom third of the NHL’s 30 teams in attendance, franchise value and payroll. Phoenix, which plays host to the Stars on Saturday, sits dead last in attendance and franchise value.

But several insiders say cyclical turns in the economy, as well as situational market flaws, are more to blame for the problems than any larger issue with hockey in the South. And, they add, that the league is more than capable of weathering the storm.

“We have concerns with some of our franchises, just as we will every season, but I think it’s dangerous to draw too big a conclusion about so-called Sunbelt markets,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said. “I think it’s interesting that you can look back more than a decade ago and we were talking about these same issues in Canada or more traditional hockey markets, and now those markets are booming. These things can happen for any number of reasons, and when they do, we find a way to address them. It’s what we do.”

With the NHL projecting total revenue at a record $2.9 billion this season — up from the $1.99 billion that was detailed in the 2003 Levitt Report — the league seems capable of handling issues that appear glaring in the South. The problem is that the solutions now seem to be the same as they were in the past, mainly moving franchises. Back in the 1990s, teams moved from Quebec City to Denver, Minnesota to Dallas, Winnipeg to Phoenix and Hartford to Carolina. Is that really what the league wants?

The Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg this season and became the Jets after no ownership group in Atlanta would step forward to purchase the team. The league has struggled to find local ownership for the Coyotes, who are owned by the NHL after a celebrated bankruptcy case. There is a very good chance the team will have to study a move — maybe as soon as the 2012-13 season. But that’s the stark reality of running a pro sports league, and it’s certainly not endemic to the NHL.

Franchise movement has been an issue in both the NBA and NFL at an equal or greater rate than the NHL.

“I think it’s too easy to cross-section teams and lump them into one group geographically,” Stars president Jim Lites said. “If you look at the business model of our franchise, we’re closer to Chicago as a city than we are to, say, Nashville or Phoenix or San Jose. If you look at Chicago 10 years ago, they had attendance issues related to their own set of problems. They fixed those issues and now they’re selling out, and they’re one of the most successful franchises in the league. I think that’s the model we’re looking at.”

Bottom line, the Stars have a history of success and an infrastructure for success that goes beyond boundaries and traditions. The bigger reasons for the current struggles are that the Hicks Sports Group overstepped its financial commitments and allowed the team to slip into receivership. Then, the lenders who took over the team failed to put in the money or manpower to keep the franchise among the more competitive in the league.

In a marketplace that includes the NBA champion Mavericks and a Texas Rangers team that has gone to two consecutive World Series, it’s no surprise that the Stars now regularly have a half-empty arena and lost $30 million last season, as reported in bankruptcy papers.

“If you look closely at each franchise, they are each up or down for more individual reasons,” Bettman said.

Winning formula

In fact, some say Dallas has shown the way for other Sunbelt teams. Nashville Predators CEO Jeff Cogen is finding success in his new job by using a blueprint he learned in Texas while both a vice president and president of the Stars.

“There are challenges that are unique to our marketplaces, and I think you address them in similar fashion,” Cogen said. “Hockey is not typically a part of the lives of our fans, so you try to make that option available with community rinks and youth leagues and adult leagues. That’s what we did in Dallas. And then you do as much as you can to introduce new fans to the sport every day. If you have an exciting product and a winning product, then you’re going to find new fans.”

Cogen is a master of filling arenas with ticket specials and in-house entertainment, and the Predators have seen an increase in attendance of more than 1,600 fans per game in the last two seasons. But that increase also has corresponded with Nashville winning its first playoff series.

“You need to have the winning, and then the winning builds the crowd, and then the crowd allows you to spend more, and that can often lead to more winning,” said Phoenix coach Dave Tippett, who has spent the last two decades in Sunbelt cities. Tippett started his coaching career in the IHL in Houston as both coach and general manager. He then was an assistant coach in Los Angeles, then head coach in Dallas and now the head coach in Phoenix.

“I think there are certain things you do differently, simply because you don’t have the built-in fanbase that’s with you through thick and thin like they do in Canada,” Tippett said. “Winning is the first step, that’s for sure.”

The problem is that every franchise can’t win every year. Carolina, Tampa Bay, Dallas and Anaheim have each won Stanley Cups in the last 15 years, and yet each has seen wild fluctuations in attendance when they’re not winning. The Ducks won the Stanley Cup in 2007 and this season rank 27th in attendance.

“It’s a challenge, but I think it’s a challenge in any sport,” Lites said. “If you have a strong infrastructure and you build a strong fan base, then you survive the lean times. But, yeah, I don’t care what you’re doing on the business side, you have to find a way to be competitive.”

Unique factors

When you study Atlanta’s problems, the fact that the team made only one playoff appearance in 11 seasons rises above any economic issue. That was a management problem more than a city problem. Phoenix is different. The Coyotes have a winning tradition and have played some of the best hockey in franchise history the last three seasons. Previous ownership, however, moved the team from downtown to the suburb of Glendale, which sits a significant distance west of the city. That has made it difficult to attract fans, many of whom live in the suburbs to the east of the city.

The Coyotes rank last in attendance and in franchise value, and that’s making it difficult to find a new owner. So does that make Phoenix a bad market or does it mean the current situation is flawed?

When the North Stars moved to Dallas in 1993, they couldn’t make things work with an antiquated arena in Bloomington, Minn. When the NHL returned to Minnesota in 2000, the team moved into a fantastic new building in St. Paul and began a nine-year sellout streak. Sometimes, issues go beyond whether a city loves hockey or not.

“I believe it can work here,” Tippett said. “I’ve seen it work in other cities like this.”

Sharing wealth

When teams struggled in Canada in the past, the NHL came up with a quiet revenue-sharing plan to offset the disparity between the U.S. dollar and the Canadian dollar. The league is quietly doing something similar now by simply bailing out some Sunbelt teams in distress.

With the collective bargaining agreement set to expire on Sept. 15 and Donald Fehr now the head of the NHL Players Association, though, you can be sure that a plan for revenue sharing will be broached. It’s something Fehr endorsed when he led baseball’s union.

NHL executives have been instructed to not speak about the CBA, but Cogen said he could speak to the larger issues of Sunbelt franchises and their importance to the league.

“I’m obviously bullish on Nashville, because I’m here, but also because I think we have a great hockey city here,” Cogen said. “But in a bigger sense, I also believe in the expanded geographic footprint. I think, for the league, it’s proven to be a very smart formula.”

And that, as much as anything, might be the reason that hockey in the Sunbelt should be able to survive.

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